Archive for April 27th, 2012

Social Mobility

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We just witnessed the most hilarious thing at an Accounting Grad School graduating social. We were working the tail end of the welcoming table,  and the graduate adviser (who was responsible for the event) and Dean walked up to the table.   There were 3 piles of name tags scattered all over the table; students, faculty, and guests.

  The advisor nervously started going on about how many people RSVP’d,  and how they should be coming, under the watchful eye of the Dean.  Then he proceeded to consolidate all the name tags into the smallest space possible.  “Ah!” I thought. “I know what’s going on here.”

As I continued to observe, it got better. Soon, of all things,  both the Dean AND the advisor proceeded to comb through the tags one more time,  and discard name tags of those who “couldn’t come”,  “were sick”, or “weren’t coming”,  including one faculty member who was unceremoniously dumped in the bin. (“They’re probably not coming”)

I thought this was “social mobility”, but it turns out it was just Accountants being OCD.